Christmas at a Highland Castle

Chapter 1

6 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

Clara shoved her glass onto the bar, frowning at the tinsel taped to the edge of the wooden panels. Were there two strings, or just one? Too drunk to make the distinction, she pulled at it to check, the strands of frayed plastic folding in on themselves under her touch. She must have pulled too hard because the pieces of tape gave way, the tinsel slumping towards the floor. Clara let go, allowing the string – it was only one – to complete its journey, watching as it became part of the detritus being trodden underfoot.

Not for the first time, she wondered if this trip had been a good idea. Whether, in fact, she was even remotely ready for this. The bar was buzzing with adrenalin-fuelled noise, the excitement fizzing out of everyone in this packed space was palpable. Christmas week in a ski resort deep in the Alps should be a dream come true.

But Christmas week, with everything that it embodied?

Not that the alternative to being here was a realistic option either. Home alone for the first Christmas in … Well, in a long time. That prospect had been even worse. Which was why she had agreed to this trip in the first place.

Although, now she was here, she didn’t so much remember the conversation with Tania being about agreeing to a nostalgic girly ski trip. It had focused more on Tania giving her the dates and Clara not having any reason to refuse. After all, there was nothing to keep her at home for Christmas. Nothing to keep her anywhere much. And her lack of a refusal had snowballed, with Tania sorting all the details, staying over the night before the flight and helping her to pack, making sure she had her passport, checking them in online to save time. Meeting up with Rose, and Rose’s friend Madeleine at the airport. The flight out. The transfer. All of it so familiar to her, even though it had been years since their last trip. All of it happening in a bit of a blur, and now she was here. In the Alps. With her two best friends and a skinful of booze to try to dull the ache.

Downing the remnants of whatever had been in her glass, she turned to the bartender. ‘ Un autre, s’il vous pla?t ,’ she said, her French GCSE finding its relevance.

‘What are you drinking?’ he said, his French accent thick enough to spread on toast.

She frowned. What was she drinking? The last mouthful had barely been consumed and it wasn’t even a ghost of a memory. Did it even matter what she drank? So long as it was something alcoholic, the rest of it was pure semantics. Attempting to answer his question, she lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. The heavy sweet lilt of Coke clung to the walls of the glass. ‘Rum and Coke?’ It escaped her lips as more of a question than a statement.

He nodded and turned for a fresh glass.

Perhaps, with enough alcohol, she could completely forget Christmas. Forget everything except the here and now.

‘Make it a double,’ she said.

Standing at the other end of the bar with Madeleine, Rose watched Clara order yet another drink, then checked her watch. Already way past midnight. Surely it was time to head back to Snow Pine Lodge?

She craned her neck to see past a group of young guys; dressed in salopettes and ski boots and wobbling into one another, they were clearly well into a very liquid après-ski and were still having fun. Behind them she caught sight of Tania. A glance was enough to suggest to Rose that her oldest friend wasn’t finished with Le Bar yet. With a Kir Royale in one hand, mobile in the other, Tania posed for another selfie. This time with the old-fashioned wooden skis and leather boots fixed against the stuccoed wall as her background. It should have been annoying, but Rose had known Tania forever and, somehow, when Tania posed her skinny white frame again and again, searching for the perfect piece of proof that she was somebody worth looking at, all Rose felt was sympathy.

Not that Tania wanted sympathy. Quite the opposite. If Rose had told her oldest friend how uncomfortable her endless posing made her feel, Tania would have been shocked. At best. Insulted, probably. At worst? Devastated.

After all, what could be more usual than posting photos of what you were doing on social media? Everybody did it.

But perhaps it was Rose who had it all wrong. Maybe it was naive to want to be judged on what kind of a person you were, rather than how you looked.

‘Would it sound whiny if I said I’m knackered?’ Beside her, Madeleine slid her empty glass onto the bar. ‘It’s just that I think I’ve tipped over from being a party popper, and am now sliding dangerously close to becoming a party pooper. Amazing the difference that part of a letter can make.’

‘Part of a letter?’ Rose took a moment to catch up with what Madeleine had said, then grinned. ‘Oh, yes. I see. Very clever. I’m pretty much done, too, to be honest.’

Madeleine smiled, but the tiredness behind her expression was clear to see as she pointed to seating at the edge of the bar. ‘I could always go and crash on one of those benches, I’m more than happy to be carried to the bus when you’ve all finished in here. But I am quite heavy. Just thought it only fair to warn you.’

Rose huffed a laugh. Madeleine’s buoyant sense of humour and openness were some of the qualities Rose most liked about her, and part of the reason she’d had no qualms inviting her along on this trip, even though Madeleine had never even met Tania or Clara before. Rose had had no doubt they’d all get along, just so long as Madeleine remembered what they’d agreed before they got on the plane. Remembered not to be too open. ‘No way am I going to carry you,’ she said. ‘We’ll go. I’ll just let the others know.’

Tania chose that moment to head back to them, wrapping an arm around Rose’s shoulder. ‘Smile,’ she said.

Automatically, Rose tipped her chin and grinned for Tania’s iPhone, holding still as the flash momentarily blinded her. ‘Have you seen the time?’

‘No. Why?’

‘We’re going to head back to the lodge.’ Rose was looking forward to the cold wait at the ‘ gratuit ’ bus stop, to watching her own expelled breath crystallising like a cloud of minuscule ice-flies circling in the resort’s winter-season lights and the stars above. The ten-minute wheel-spinning drive back up the mountain along the slick tarmac was as integral a part of Près du Ciel as the snow itself. The road carved between the ever-expanding piles of bulldozed snow. She was looking forward to sharing it all with Madeleine for the first time.

‘Oh, God. Really?’ Tania draped a crestfallen expression over her features. It was an expression Rose had seen a thousand times, when her friend knew the evening was almost over, but wasn’t quite ready to relinquish her hold on it. Tania had always known how to party. Hardly surprising, with an A-list actor for a father and a half-brother recognised the world over as he melted millions of hearts from the covers of fashion magazines. Tania hadn’t really been given a choice in the high-octane pace she was expected to live her life, with the media hot in pursuit and desperate for any little titbit they could find on her.

‘Yes. Really.’

‘Blame me, if you like,’ Madeleine said. ‘It’s been a long day. And I want to enjoy tomorrow.’

‘Well, I might stay a little longer,’ Tania said, a touch of irritation in her voice. Or was that Rose’s imagination?

‘Will you be OK with Clara, or should we take her home with us?’

‘You go. I’ll look after her,’ Tania said.

Clara had necked glass after glass of wine in the pizzeria and was on goodness knows which number drink since they’d arrived at Le Bar. They’d noticed Clara was drinking more and more. To be honest, Rose couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a sober evening with her diminutive friend. But she couldn’t really blame Clara for her slip into the abyss. Wasn’t sure anybody else would have coped any better. Not after what happened.

‘If you’re sure?’ Rose said, looping a scarf around her neck and pulling on her jacket.

‘I’m sure,’ Tania said. ‘It’s not as if it’s the first time I’ve dealt with her in this state. We’ll be fine.’

Once Rose and Madeleine had left, Tania kicked a piece of fallen tinsel out of her way and took a seat at the bar – or should that be Le Bar – toying with the bottom half of her glass of Kir Royale. A solid Harrington family tradition, to drink champagne mixed with the sweet blackcurrant syrup liqueur on the first night of a ski trip. One of the few family traditions she did still hold onto, although since her mid-teens Tania had observed the tradition in Le Bar, rather than in Snow Pine Lodge. And tonight, this glass was rapidly losing its appeal, the bubbles were all but gone and the liquid had warmed in the fug of the heaving bar.

Sighing, she pushed the glass away, scrolling through the photos she’d taken since their arrival in France. She would create a montage and post them everywhere in the morning. Maybe she would claim she had been partying too hard to have a moment to think about social media this evening. She paused. Or maybe she wouldn’t.

She’d flirted with her social media audience – as well as the media in general – for as long as she could remember. There hadn’t really been any way to avoid it, with her father being who he was. And she thought she’d worked out how to navigate the fine line between courting the media and being eaten alive by it. But recently she’d almost come unstuck. She’d felt the metaphorical snap of the press’s teeth at her heels, had only escaped being named in the tabloids because almost everyone who played this game knew when to close ranks. When to stay quiet.

The thing was, she would have deserved a mauling. Her behaviour had left her open to accusations and criticism; there was no doubt the whole episode had shown a distinct lack of good judgement on her behalf. The situation had left her questioning whether she wanted to play the game any longer. The pressure of having to think about how everything she did looked to other people was relentless. It was exhausting.

Maybe now was as good a time as any to change direction. She wondered what it would be like to disappear, even if it were only for a little while. Scrolling through the pictures, she began to delete them, one by one. Maybe this was the week to find out.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’

‘No thank you,’ Tania said, without looking up. How many times had she heard that? If that was the best introductory line the guy could think up, then she already knew she wasn’t interested. Oliver Ordinary. Vincent Vanilla. Felix Forgettable.

‘Shall we short cut straight to sex in a hot tub instead, then?’

That got her attention. She looked at him, taking in a rough approximation of his face: a heavy jawline, dark eyes set perfectly beneath a rough mop of hair, eyebrows thick and arched as if he was seriously waiting for her to reply. Her mouth had already begun to form the expletives required to tell him exactly what he could do with his proposition, but the words never got the chance to materialise. Instead, a crash on the other side of the room loud enough to eclipse the noise of the DJ’s bass-heavy track took everyone’s attention.

Tania swung around in time to see Clara sliding the final few inches onto the floor, an upturned table and the accompanying flotsam and jetsam of broken bottles and glasses the clear markers of her undoing.

A different range of expletives made themselves available for Tania to pick through as she pocketed her phone, pushed past Mr Explicit, and headed for her friend. In the end, the glass cut on Clara’s hand aided her choice of words.

‘Oh, shit,’ Tania said, quietly.